From the Doctor’s Desk – Women & Hair Loss

The female hair loss patients in my office are usually African American, around the age of 40, and have been noticing their hair thinning out around the edges of their frontal hairline. This particular patient told me that she began noticing the problem “years ago” but thought it was “inherited” because her mother and sisters have it too. Usually these women will have had chemical hair relaxers regularly applied to their hair every six weeks, as advised by their hairdressers.

Although some patients are older or younger than the age mentioned, this is the general pattern we see. These ladies appear at my office, they will usually have braided extensions, sewn-in hair weaves or full wigs on to camouflage their hair loss. They are all too often, at the end-stage of Traction Alopecia.

Traction Alopecia starts very badly in young African American women, many of home have experienced tight, braided hairstyles, chemical hair straighteners, tight ponytails, hot comes and hot curlers, from their very earliest age. By the time this patient presents herself in my clinic at the age of 40, the scalp could be irreversibly scarred and the hair follicles could be choked out. Milder cases are treatable if caught in time.

Of course there are other types of hair loss and some of these are treatable. So what ever you do, if you have noticeable hair loss, do not wait. Go to your dermatologist as soon as possible. We at Divine Dermatology offer Platelet-Rich Plasma treatments to combat hair loss.